The "Study Guide for Xenogears and Xenosaga" was a Gears and Saga information preservation site that existed between September 2010 and October 2013 and was hosted by XenoTensei.
However, due to malware attacks on the site and "a domain registry mix up" the host went down in October 2013 and since that time I made a decision not to upload the study guide elsewhere despite getting some offers from kind people that were willing to host the site. The reasons for this were many, but the main one was that I wanted to revise and improve a lot of the content before putting the site back up anywhere and, being a bit tired of the study guide, the fans, and the series at the time, I decided to take a long break before making any final decision about what to do with the study guide.
However, just a little over three years have passed and I now have regained some interest in going over the original study guide material and putting the good parts back up on this blog where I will not have to rely on a host. There's been a need to recreate the study guide a bit from scratch since when the guide was originally conceived in 2009 there was still some rumors that Xenosaga might continue (see the end of the "History of Xenosaga" article) and when the site finally went up in 2010 the release of Xenoblade had generated much confusion that I felt forced to deal with on the study guide. In addition to that were feedback from the fan community as well as a series of new translations that kept expanding the guide - with the result that the content ended up a little all over the place and has since that time been in need of reorganization. Add to that some new perspectives during the past three years the study guide has been down and it became even more important to put the material back together in a new way.
Right now I have only put up the translated interviews since it'd be a shame if Gwendal's translation work was lost, and the History of Xenogears and Xenosaga article since that seems to be the most popular one from the study guide. As time goes by I will probably get to most of the other information as well, but don't expect it to be back up soon. I'm not in a rush to put it all back up and some of it might get thrown away, or will need some improvement and revisions and updates. I also need to familiarize myself with this blog format. But for now, enjoy what has been restored.
Looking forward to re-reading your history of the fandom series if it ever pop-ups again. Glad that you're still around even if it's from time to time only for now, your insight's always appreciated.
ReplyDeletepops-up*
DeleteIf I ever restore the fandom history it will be as a separate blog. Many readers didn't think it fit in with the rest of the Study Guide.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see this back up. I found The History of Xenogears and Xenosaga article somewhere a while back, printed it out double-sided, and read it. I was just looking for something today and re-found the papers, which brought me here. I remember the article being very interesting and even remember some details without having re-read it yet.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in reading an updated addendum or even a part five to cover Xenoblade Chronicles X and possibly the upcoming Xenoblade 2 written by Xenotensei (not sure if that's you or not) or someone with a similar depth of knowledge for the series. I'm not as big a fan of the stuff post-Xenosaga (no doubt in part due to being older now than I was then), but the series' evolution, good or bad, along with any remaining connections to Xenogears and/or Xenosaga would be an intriguing thing to catch up on.
Hi. The History of Xenogears and Xenosaga article has been updated with minor revisions and additions, and will keep getting updated if new interesting information regarding the development surfaces. These occasional updates will not be announced however, as they are usually very small.
ReplyDeleteThere will be no coverage of the development of any other games or series apart from the original 6-part "Xenoverse" (Xenogears and Xenosaga). I don't consider the Xenoblade IP to be an evolution apart from the game play mechanics, which are of no interest to this Study Guide that focuses on story. Xenoblade is its own brand, and the occasional easter egg is not worth the effort. I have no interest in the Xenoblade IP whatsoever unfortunately. I don't play those games and I don't even watch the cutscenes online. I barely even read developer interviews about them and only scan for a mention of Xenogears/Xenosaga or biographical anecdotes on Takahashi.
The only possibility of a (minor) coverage happening would be if the Xenogears or Xenosaga series was revived, in which case a mention of the limbo period between Xenosaga III and the revival would have to be addressed at the beginning.
I'm sure there are other people keeping track of the various easter eggs or connections in the new IP though. But like you I am getting too old for that.
:) That all makes sense. Thanks for all your hard work and for sharing your research and knowledge in such an entertaining way!
DeleteProbably a good idea for the resources. I made separate menus for them. With the interviews they're simply listed according to date and so naturally the Xenogears interviews (of which there are only two short ones anyway) are the oldest ones at the bottom. Maybe if a newer XG interview appeared, but I'll leave it as it is for now.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has only joined the community (if there still even is a gears/saga community left) relatively recently, I cannot thank you enough for the contributions you’ve made. Your guides really make me feel like I was there, anticipating the next xenosaga, anxious to see what Takahashi had in store next. It’s a shame that there aren’t many people left to tell the tale, but your guides are more than enough (perhaps even better).
ReplyDeleteI know that you don’t care much for the Xenoblade series, perhaps even harboring a negative view of it if I am remembering correctly from other writings you had posted about it at one point, but I think that in 2018, there are signs that things are starting to shift a bit.
The Zohar, albeit by a different name, is in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, in a significant way. If the way the original Xenoblade Chronicles was structured in terms of story, with no zohar, not as much of a focus on religious themes such as gnosticism, christianity etc. can be explained in terms of Takahashi feeling fatigued and defeated of xenosaga from the perception that it was a failure, as you lay out in your guide, then in the 8 years since the release of Xenoblade, Takahashi’s attitude toward his pre- Blade games seems to have changed considerably. He recently said in an interview that he has the will to release “the answers” of Xenogears ep6 for as long as he is alive. There Are many more signs of the Takahashi household re-embracing “xeno” which i will not go into detail for the sake of not making this comment a bigger wall of text than it already is, but I feel like all of this is worthwhile information to the history of gears and saga, because it deals with what has happened to Takahashi post- EpIII and because if there is ever going to be an “answer” of gears ep6, it will likely take the form of a Xenoblade game.
The reason that I think many people ask you about blade is because I think you are one of the only people left who could string together the 20 year journey that the Takahashi couple have taken without missing any crucial pieces to tell the whole story.
P.S., if you ever need translations for something, I’m glad to help out, as I am fluent in Japanese.
Hi Unknown. Is there by chance you can send a link on Takahashi interview about: "the answers” of Xenogears ep6 for as long as he is alive." Thats awsome that he mention that. I did read interview around last june where if someone was willing to pick up and fund the game, he would like to finish the story. Also i fell off my chair when the man himself did a video interview on e3 talking about xbc 2. I wish i would known about that.
DeleteWhile I understand that people appreciate me collecting and saving information on the original series over the years, it should be perfectly possible for other people who are passionate and interested to do their own write-ups of the Xenoblade series. I am nowhere near paying enough attention to be able to do a good job of that anyway.
DeleteI appreciate that you bring new info regarding Takahashi and Xenogears to my attention though, because I was not aware of him saying anything like that. I didn't even know about a XG concert until today. I did a search and I assume you are referring to this interview only available in Japanese: http://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/interview/180202
If you're fluent in Japanese and offering to do translations, perhaps you could translate that interview or just the bits about Xenogars and Xenosaga? =)
My A.C. unit. Some uploads from XG 20th an concer. Flight / Wings (Xenogears 20th Anniversary Concert):
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=50RexLM366I
Small Two of Pieces (Xenogears 20th Anniversary Concert):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=13s&v=WhnipwcnOQM
Are they really called the "Ahnenerbe Orchestra"?! Awesome! It's great and inspiring to see such reverence for this game. Have Mitsuda done any other concerts of other game soundtracks he's composed? I'm guessing Square-Enix ordered this for the 20th anniversary, do they do that with a lot of their titles?
DeleteHello Study Guide/A.C., I'm Damien Mecheri, author and editorial assistant at Third Editions, a French publishing house dedicated to video game books. Do you have an email address? There's something we want to ask you ;)
ReplyDelete(I just sent an email at the email address which was on the "contact" page from your late-xenotensei website, but I don't know if this address is still valid)
You can also contact me directly at damien.mecheri@thirdeditions.com
Thanks in advance, best regards,
Damien.
Hi Damien, I received your email. I will take a look at it and respond when I've got the time.
DeleteThanks! Have a nice day, best regards,
DeleteDamien.
Hello, I am the "Unknown" that posted on April 7th. The reply button just will not work for me, so I guess I'm going to have to post this as another comment.
ReplyDeleteReplying to Study Guide(sorry, not sure what to refer to you as), yes I am willing to translate that interview. I thought it had already been done, but I could only find a Siliconera article that only translated the least interesting parts of the interview, so I guess I had just seen the title and assumed that the juiciest parts of the interview were already out there in English. I will, as you say, translate the bits about gears and saga, however I suspect that that will end up being a big chunk of the interview because of the necessity to provide context, but also, because a lot of the interview deals with the current philosophy Takahashi has towards storytelling and game-making, which I think still makes it relevant to gears and saga. As an aside, I recommend looking at the E3 interview that Chris M. mentioned, as I assume you have not looked at it. The interviewee asks Takahashi about what the prefix "xeno" means, and it is extremely different from the answer he gave in the Iwata Asks, and the interview looked like it was scripted, so it was not an on-the-fly answer. The point of my original comment was not really to urge you to write about the Xenoblade series, although that would be nice, but more that Saga and Gears don't seem to be as dead as they used to, and that I think more could be written about what has happened post-saga as it relates to gears/saga.
Anyway, I don't have a set time frame or any idea how long the translation will take, but I"ll make sure to get it done. I'll post the translation on the Xenoblade Chronicles reddit when I'm done, and then post the link to that thread in this comments section, if that works with you.
Yes, I would encourage you and everyone to provide links more often when you bring this stuff up. I tried looking for an E3 video interview but probably didn't find it (because what I found was not worth my time to sort through). Whenever you find something interesting, save the quote/picture/whatever and the link. That's what I used to do, for easy access whenever something comes up in a discussion. Otherwise things just disappear into incomplete memory and vague rumor land.
DeleteTakahashi's comment on episode 6 and interest in "continuing Xenosaga if someone financed it" are things I could potentially add to the end of the History of Xenosaga article, but besides that I don't think anything has been of enough substance to bother with (finding something in an article when it is too long is a pain, and the history article is already very long).
But, like I said, I'm no longer the collector of this type of information that I used to be (and even back then I got a lot of help from other fans). Newer fans can carry on from where I and others left off. Heck, I could even make a post about "the future of Xenogears and Xenosaga" and then whenever something comes up or anyone finds something, they can just post a quote and a link as a response to it. Then all of that stuff would pile up in a single place AND in chronological order.
If you’re still interested, here is the relevant part I was talking about:
Deletehttps://youtu.be/tAdGaknQA5g
From 16:40 to 17:56
Thanks, yeah that was the video I didn't feel like sitting through. I wonder if that was his original feelings regarding the Xeno prefix. I don't know if I should add it to the history of Xenogears or not. What he says isn't exactly different from before, he's just expanding on what it means to him personally beyond simply the definition of the word as "strange/alien/different."
Deletehttps://pastebin.com/0W67FTDn
DeleteI've finished the translation for the Denfaminicogamer interview/discussion article. It's pretty long, but the relevant portion about Ep 6 comes up pretty early on. There are some bits about Square throughout the article and also some hints about his current view of his pre-blade games, but it's probably nothing new for you. It's probably new to others, so I just translated it anyway.
If you ever need anything else... Just reply back to this comment, I guess?
Thank you, that was a pretty interesting interview and revealed a lot about Takahashi. I think some of that is worth including in the history of Xenogears article and I'd like to put up your translation with the other interviews on the study guide if you don't mind? Since it's not specifically a Xenoblade 2 interview - more a game developers interview - with a lot of information on the development of Xenogears, I think it belongs on the study guide.
DeleteAnd yes, this is great, I am interested in some more translation work. Take a look here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/199365-xenogears/76563240
There are interviews in the Xenogears 20th Anniversary Concert pamphlet with Yasunori Mitsuda, Hiromichi Tanaka, Tetsuya Takahashi, and Kunihiko Tanaka.
Priority goes to translating the Tetsuya Takahashi interview, but any interview translated from there will be archived on the study guide for sure. I don't know if translating from those particular photos is workable or if you can get a hold of better scans, but let me know how much you feel like translating from there. Also, if you spot anything interesting elsewhere in the pamphlet then let us know.
Other than that, and maybe first, I also wanted you to take a look at a line that Gwendal had trouble translating. It's in this interview: http://xenogearsxenosagastudyguide.blogspot.se/p/a-word-with-xenosaga-developers-2003.html
The part I'm refering to is:
Q: Are there any books you'd like to recommend?
Tetsuya Takahashi: Hmm, not anything in particular. When it comes to books and movies, and games too for that matter, there's not really anything I'm too fixated on. I'm willing to try anything instead of dismissing things without giving them a chance. You could say I'm just not [something, I really can't figure out exactly what he's saying here, sorry]. (Laughs)
That last part. I thought he might be saying "I'm just not picky" but Gwendal didn't think it said that. What's your take?
Yes that’s fine. I translated it in the hopes of it being used somewhere in the guide (and also hoping a lot of people get the opportunity to read it). If you would be so kind as to credit my screen name for it somewhere, that is all I ask for.
DeleteI will do the pamphlet translation, although I’ll probably just do the interviews with all the people involved, and not much of the other stuff, as it mostly seems like flavor text to remind people about the game before they go to the concert, or lyrics to the songs. I’ll be on the lookout for anything interesting on those pages, though. I heard that the concert pamphlet mentions something about Takahashi owning the original cell animation sheets for the anime parts of the game; that’s all I’ve heard so that might be the most interesting part of all of this.
My take for the famitsu answer is this: “You could just say I’m not a nerd about any topic in particular. (Laughs) so yes, you would be right. He uses the word “moe” in a really odd way, so it’s kind of confusing what he’s trying to say even in Japanese, but I assume that’s what he means.
Also, is it fine to just use this comment section to do this kind of correspondence? I kind of feel bad for taking all this space up.
Don't worry about it, there's not many comments being posted here anyway. Besides, this is what the comments under update/news posts are for (as compared to articles where I prefer people stay on the subject if I have enabled comments). However, it might be suitable to move the conversation into the comment field of the latest update post I just made, where I mentioned your translation work.
DeleteHello once again,
ReplyDeleteI've been brushing up on the choice of main themes you proposed for the 3 main story arcs in Xenogears/Xenosaga, and I must say I'm impressed. Though interviews with the game developers shed light regarding "Fear" being Xenosaga's main theme, "Grief" did pop up in Xenogears the same way "Fear" did in Saga. A little bit more subtle in my opinion, but it's still there.
I was wondering, you refer to the 3 emotions you chose as main themes as core emotions that give rise to the basic human ego defense. Mind if I ask for the source of that particular tidbit? It'd be really pertinent to continue my research. If it's the Enneagram, I've done a quick check of Naranjo's "Character and Neurosis" and, while I find little mentions of ego defense, I didn't see those particular 3 emotions (Fear, Grief and Anger) being given the spotlight that much.
Thanks in advance!
I got the idea from the Enneagram one day when I was looking at some websites and saw the word "Grief" used for the Emotional Center in place of the more common "Shame" you find in the Riso-Hudson version of the Enneagram. But because "Grief" wasn't used very often in Enneagram literature (I don't think Naranjo's version even uses the idea of three core emotions at all) I stopped referencing the Enneagram and tried to find support for the three story arc themes in other places, such as in-game text, developer interviews, and such, even though there's not much to go on.
DeleteIt would be interesting to know exactly how and why Takahashi picked those two themes for Xenogears and Xenosaga and whether the grief theme was always as intentional for the second story arc as the Fear theme clearly was for the first (Xenosaga trilogy).
Thanks for the info! Turns out my further research thanks to that does indeed reveal the core emotions of Fear, Shame and Anger most of the time, though I've found a few pages dealing with Grief. I think that, once I go through both Gears and Saga again in the near future to refresh my memory, I'd like to write something up regarding the specific choice of typology for the psychology of the characters, because it seems to be highly compatible with both themes (Fear, Grief) as well as motifs and inspirations (Enneagram as a way of self discovery is highly reminiscent of Gnostic psychology as well as Jungian analytical psychology). I know some other Japanese authors who have a fondness for Jung who have also used the Enneagram in cool ways, though none of them have ever matched the care that went into the earlier Xeno videogames.
DeleteRegarding the theme of Grief, I agree that it is less obvious than Xenosaga's use of Fear, because it keeps being the focus right till the end. Xenogears is perhaps more subtle about it. I wonder if the choice of themes influenced the Ennea-types of the main characters as well.
Which Japanese authors are those you refer to? Feel free to share links to any articles on this research you write if it happens.
DeleteI was mainly talking about Nakazawa Takumi, a guy who used to direct and write rather character driven sci fi Visual Novel games. He has a couple of them that deal with Jungian psychology and human identity in the era of computers, as well as communication between humans and the unsurmountable differences in worldview between them. It's this later game (called Root Double if you are curious) that uses the Enneagram. It's mainly a thriller, but the "mental waves" of every single character fall under an Ennea-type, and I personally took it as being analogous to the soul. The main cast is fantastic and obviously written using the Enneagram, but as I said, I still have yet to find characterization that goes as deep into it as the earlier Xeno games.
DeleteSure, it's going to be busy, but I definitely want to do something like that.
And in line with the talk about the Grief theme, I've been checking the JP script and using Grahf's introduction scene to see how the translation of the game to English might have reduced the specific mentions of the word "Grief". The word Richard Honeywood translated as "grief" is 哀しみ (kanashimi), also better recognized as its alternate spelling 悲しみ, which is commonly translated as "sadness". It can also stand in for "sorrow" and "grief". Looking over possible nuances, all of them apparently indicate the human reaction to loss without much distinction.
DeleteThe kanji Grahf used in that sentence, 哀しみ, is used to refer to another person's grief/sorrow/sadness, while 悲しみ refers to the grief/sorrow/sadness you yourself experience.
So yeah, this is just one example, but I'm pretty sure lots of the time the game mentions "sorrow" or "sadness", those words might as well be interchangeable with "grief". It sure pops up a lot in Karellen's last stand. Maybe the fact that it's less noticeable than "Fear" is in Xenosaga is that Honeywood tried to use different translations to kanashimi to keep freshness up, while the same didn't happen in Xenosaga.
Thanks for letting me know about the original Japanese script. That could come in handy when discussing this topic in the future.
DeleteIncidentally, I have now found Beatrice Chestnut's The Complete Enneagram and the emotion triad she uses is "Fear, Grief, and Anger", with grief and sadness being interchangeable. Pretty sure Chestnut is a follower of Naranjo's studies, she references Ichazo a lot, and seems to build off Sandra Maitri as well.
DeleteOf course, Chestnut's book (while insanely complete) is also waaay too novel to have been used as a source for anything in this series. There's also the fact that the ODM loves to use the "healthy" and "unhealthy" distinction which as far as I know is something very typical of those using Richard Riso as a source. There's also the fact that, as you once pointed out, Kevin's ODM profile has a paragraph that's nearly identical to the intro of Riso and Hudson's description of Type 5 in "Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self Discovery". Incidentally, regarding that, Chestnut's book's whole tirade on the Social 5 reminds me a lot of Wilhelm's ODM profile, which points out an hilariously overlooked aspect when it comes to his character.
https://overthinkingmedia468479265.wordpress.com/2022/04/16/the-time-of-the-gospel-an-approximation-to-the-meaning-of-ahnenerbe/
ReplyDeleteEnded up doing a long post about the end state of Xenogears, but which has a lot to do with the implications of the Afterword. Decided to share, if it was of interest.
As a small bit of trivia, regarding the ヒト angle, I've done some searching through the JP scripts of the Xenosaga games and found that it's also used in a similar way, though in a far more limited fashion. Concretely, it's only Albedo who does it, starting from his rant to MOMO on the Song of Nephilim in Episode I. He also uses it to the same effect in his final rant to Jr in Episode II, within the Space-Time anomaly.
Thank you for clarifying some issues with Gwendal's translation. Also...
DeleteIt makes sense, given it messes up pretty well with the idea of a species still in its childhood.
...You use the words "mess" and "messes" a lot. It should be "meshes up pretty well with" unless there is something more to the word "mess" in English I am not aware of.
Not a native English speaker, so that's one of the mistakes still remaining for me. Thanks for pointing it out, will correct it as soon as I can ^^.
DeleteRegardless, to sum up some details revealed in the Afterword and what they could mean for the game itself was an idea dwelling in my head for a long time. Feels pretty weird that the remaining mysteries are mostly deemed either not all that important or not that key within the overall narrative. Specially regarding the true phenomena meant to manifest in the Time of the Gospel and what exactly this new kind, Ahnenerbe, is.
The in-game implications of those mysteries are very subtle so I didn't really think much of them either before I first read the Perfect Works Afterword which was tranlated very late, and it is the connection with the 10,000 year time-limit brought up at the end of Xenosaga III that really makes it interesting in my opinion. At least the idea of the time-limit has been brought up and mentioned in recent Xenogears discourse such as the State of the Arc Podcast (I still haven't listened to the Retrograde Amnesia Xenogears Podcast, but those guys didn't seem to have payed much attention to this particular issue based on their guest appearance on State of the Arc when the subject was brought up).
DeleteI listened to the State of the Arc podcast on Xenogears in its entirety (incidentally, I've been following their stuff ever since, their analysis on those 20 episodes seemed pretty thorough), though I'd say they were held back by translation issues. Neither them nor their guests had played Xenosaga to completion, and the last episode featured some dismissal of it with some pretty weird arguments backing it up.
DeleteThe time limit as said by chaos includes multiple 10,000 of years (I've checked the JP and it's the same there), which intrigues me. I'm positive the concept for both "threats" is the same, if somewhat more polished and with a modified presentation in Xenosaga (can't have it the same way when Gears presents this plot point as a mystery, and some of the hints in Gears do strike me as the concept being in diapers. But again, that's the series as a whole, not just Episode V), so I wonder why the time limit was made longer this time. Perhaps whatever happens in the inmediate future would cause those involved to believe "passing the torch" is no longer a viable option due to the time limit being shortened for some reason. In Gears, this is the crash of the Eldrige into a planet that wasn't its true destiny I'd reckon. Saga though moved this setting to Lost Jerusalem, so we can't rely on this.
I think you are unnecessarily reading too much into and complicating the "multiple" wording. In the English version, chaos says: "At best, this universe will last another few tens of thousands of years before it perishes." Thousands of years is just an expression. It's multiple because it is more than one year. It would be strange to structure the sentence into a specific 10,000 years exactly since even chaos wouldn't know for certain how long the universe will last.
DeleteI don't think I'm reading too much into it, in fact, the sentence is pretty clear that chaos' estimation of how much the universe will last goes beyond 10,000 years.
DeleteThe original sentence is 遅くとも数万年後、確実にこの宇宙は崩壊するだろう。A more literal translation than the official one would be "Perhaps this universe will collapse, for certain, after several tens of thousands of years, at best" (遅くとも literally indicates chaos is purposefully estimating the speed of the universe's collapse at its lowest, if you catch my drift). This is chaos' most optimistic estimation, and you are right, he doesn't know the exact timeframe. However, what's clear is that he expects it to take more than 10,000 years.
The fact that it's precisely the 10,000 years figure that's used is not a coincidence (hell, given we are speaking narrative concepts here, a mere time limit would have clued me in), especially given what we are dealing with (more or less a reboot of the Michtam incident, end of Episode I kind of thing), so these two concepts are 100% linked. What I am arguing is that the scenario eventually diverging in some ways might account for why chaos' estimate is somewhat higher than the time limit established in Gears, and that circunstances being different in a significant detail (different setting) is not a detail that can be smoothed over without some differences involved. If the failure to reach Lost Jerusalem eventually leads to the Deus Resurrection Program as we know it (from Xenogears), then, what sort of adversity might those who've reached Lost Jerusalem (in Xenosaga) encounter that throws them into ditching the initial plans and the "believe in the light of human beings' will" motto? My take is that something will eventually shorten the estimation, perhaps to a mere 10,000 years, to a point they wouldn't have the luxury of time anymore. But you are right in that, this is eventually not that important.
"after several tens of thousands of years" is different from "another few tens of thousands of years," so I'm wondering why the official translator chose "another few" rather than "several" or "multiple," especially since the official translation sounds better in terms of narrative urgency and dramatic effect. But if that is the intended meaning then perhaps Takahashi was trying to foreshadow, consider or include the extended time needed for a third story arc beyond the "Xenogears re-imagining."
DeleteAgain, I chose literality over the sentence reading well, I also like the flow of the official translation better. Nevermind that I can't compare with professionals as a translator. But looking at the original script does help to clarify nuances (for example, I remember people confused about whether or not Yuriev in Episode III said the Zohar Emulators and the Y-Data were Relics of God. The original script leaves no doubt as to the fact the Emulators are Relics, but the Y-Data is not).
DeleteThe time after Xenogears is especially problematic due to the fact that what "Ahnenerbe" entails in its entirety is unknown. If something was indeed going to happen if "God" wasn't resurrected at the Time of the Gospel, then we don't know how exactly Ahnenerbe would delay (perhaps) it. So what you propose could be an appropiate answer. I believe the concept of Ahnenerbe is related, in its genealogy, as to why chaos chose to entrust the future to Abel and the "next generation", but we also don't know the full implications of that, nor do we know of the "secret/key to saving all", which would indeed be helpful.
Hey there, hope all's going well.
ReplyDeleteJust here to report that what was probably the last remaining untranslated piece of Xenogears media has, finally, been fully translated to English. In short, it's a pretty short Light Novel that was developed side to side with the game, from what I'm hearing. However, neither Takahashi nor Tanaka were deeply involved with its writing, much less had any direct hand in it. The novel uses some info that was only revealed in Perfect Works, so it seems that the author had knowledge of setting material only privy to the Xenogears team at the time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/XenoGears/comments/17ts2ag/xenogears_novel_a_god_slaying_story_has_finally/?rdt=50648
Here it is. Given it doesn't involve Takahashi and Tanaka, dunno how interesting it'll be to you, but I guess I might as well drop by to inform of this translation's existence.
Maybe I will check it out some time. It appears I cannot reply to comments using this Google Account. It hasn't worked for months. Right now posting as guest but with the Name / URL option. Until I get it fixed I might not comment as much as before but I still read comments whenever I check in.
Delete